By Sanjay Badri-Maharaj

On February 5, 2017, a version of the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) was unveiled. The aptly-named “Advanced Hawk” is a joint-venture between BAE Systems and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). It has been developed using internal funds on an equal risk basis and offers significant enhancement of the capabilities of the basic Hawk AJT.1 The aircraft, besides being offered as an enhanced capability trainer to larger air arms – India with 123 Hawks in service being a prime candidate – is also being marketed as an affordable light-combat aircraft choice to smaller air forces. While the Hawk AJT was a global success story in the export market, the “Advanced Hawk” enters the market at a time when China has made significant inroads into the light combat aircraft market and would be a direct competitor to the “Advanced Hawk”.2

In choosing to create a new aircraft that goes beyond an upgrade of the existing Hawk AJT, HAL and BAE have gambled on being able to break into the export market. Indeed, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is reputedly not keen to order the “Advanced Hawk” as a combat aircraft and is at best lukewarm at this stage about its necessity for enhanced training.3 However, an examination of previous exports of the Hawk as well as an evaluation of possible customers suggests that sales of the “Advanced Hawk” may not be easily forthcoming due to a combination of fiscal and political constraints in addition to cost-effective competition from Chinese platforms.

The potential export market for the “Advanced Hawk” has to be divided into two segments – customers that want a capability enhanced trainer and those that want a cost-effective light combat aircraft-cum-trainer. It is submitted that the demand for the former is going to be less forthcoming than the latter as larger air forces may opt for upgrades of their Hawks’ avionics to meet future training requirements rather than purchase new aircraft. In fact, BAE Systems and HAL have already taken cognizance of this and are offering upgrade options to existing Hawk customers with various modules from the “Advanced Hawk”.4 However, in respect of the latter requirement for cost-effective combat aircraft, the “Advanced Hawk” may be on firmer ground but will nonetheless face severe challenges in finding markets.

The Hawk AJT has been sold to every continent except South America. While most of these aircraft are used in their training role, the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) made extensive use of the Hawk T.Mk.60 as a light-strike aircraft during the 1998-2001 Second Congo War. Armed with a combination of 30mm Aden cannon (in a pod mounted on a centreline pylon), unguided rockets and bombs, the AFZ Hawks proved to be one of the most effective strike aircraft of that conflict and proved popular in service – even acting as an interceptor armed with Chinese made PL-7 air-to-air missiles.5 This combat pedigree should augur well for the “Advanced Hawk” as it offers a considerable increase in those combat capabilities with provision for Brimstone air-to-ground missiles and ASRAAM air-to-air missiles.6 BAE Systems’ attempts to market dedicated combat versions of the Hawk – in the form of the Hawk 200 series – found only three customers (Malaysia, Indonesia and Oman) for a total of 62 aircraft. However, this does not in any way negate the potential of a new dual-purpose platform – good for training as well as light combat roles.

What is of much greater importance is the fact that the “Advanced Hawk” will be subject to the export control rules of both the United Kingdom and India, with export clearances being needed from the governments of both countries.7 This could adversely affect sales as at least three Hawk operators – Indonesia, Kenya and Zimbabwe – found themselves facing spares embargoes from the United Kingdom. This led to a major fall in serviceability and eventually resulted in the latter two countries withdrawing the type from service.8 The AFZ in particular viewed the sanctions imposed by the UK as being crippling to its defence preparedness.9

This experience has had two consequences. The first is a wariness on the part of some African and Asian countries about buying aircraft subject to UK export clearances. The second has been to open the market to Chinese aircraft to countries that would not have usually chosen such an option. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Zimbabwe where the much less capable Chinese JL-8/K-8 trainer replaced the T.Mk.60 Hawk in the light-attack role with the AFZ’s No.2 squadron which had earned an enviable reputation during the Second Congo War.10

Mexico and the Latin American region may also be wary of UK export controls owing to that country’s close political proximity to the United States. It is unlikely that Argentina would ever be allowed to purchase British combat capable aircraft while any attempt on the part of Mexico to make such a purchase could face additional complications should the United States object. Anticipating and working to circumvent these potential political pitfalls in advance could enhance the “Advanced Hawk’s” prospects for sales.

Despite these concerns, there is a large potential market for the “Advanced Hawk”. Countries that need to replace ageing Cessna A-37 attack aircraft (such as Colombia, Uruguay and even Peru) may be tempted by the capability enhancement that the “Advanced Hawk” offers, while countries seeking to supplement or supplant equally geriatric MiG-21s and F-5s may find the cost-effectiveness of operating the “Advanced Hawk” appealing. The need for replacements for these aircraft – particularly the A-37s and F-5s – is acute, as spares are now in relatively short supply while the extreme age of many airframes will be a cause for concern. If some African and Latin American air forces eschew the “prestige” of supersonic aircraft, the “Advanced Hawk” could be an attractive option.

However, even while readily realizing that this potential market exists, the cost of the “Advanced Hawk” may be a significant deterrent factor. It is as yet unknown what the aircraft will cost. But given the level of sophistication that the type undoubtedly has, it is an open question whether countries that might see the “Advanced Hawk” as a viable aircraft choice can afford to purchase it. This factor cannot be understated as many potential customers are now unable to afford replacement aircraft or even to maintain those in service. Uruguay, for example, can only keep its A-37s flying for two or three more years and has already grounded its IA.58 Pucaras. In this respect, China is well placed, with its JL-8 and its more advanced L-15 trainer/light-strike aircraft being attractively priced.

Yet, it must be acknowledged that the “Advanced Hawk” aircraft is potentially HAL’s opportunity to break into the export market. With the support of BAE Systems, the aircraft has the potential to become a “Make in India” success story. The extent of the success will be dependent upon gauging the market honestly and targeting the product appropriately having regard to all the possible constraints. This is an opportunity that should be grasped by HAL to establish itself as a viable exporter of aircraft and it should use its partnership with BAE Systems to ensure that this project succeeds.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://idsa.in/idsacomments/hal-gamble-advanced-hawk_sbmaharaj_130217

• 1. S. Aroor, “Revealed: The BAE-HAL Joint “Advanced Hawk”,” Livefistdefence.com,5 February 2017 (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 2. M. Pubby, “Indo-UK made new Hawk combat aircraft looks to take on China,” Economic Times,6 February 2017 (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 3. P. Sagar, “Setback for Make in India initiative after IAF says no to advanced Hawk trainer jets,” The New Indian Express, 6 February 2017 (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 4. Note 1.
• 5. T. Cooper, P. Winert, F. Hinz & M. Lepko, African MiGs Volume 1: Angola to Ivory Coast (Houston: Harpia, 2010), pp. 130-36.
• 6. C. Pocock, “BAE Systems Working on ‘Advanced’ Hawk Jet for India,” Aviation International News Online, 10 June 2016 (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 7. Note 2.
• 8. R. Dilley, “The ‘trainer’ jet the UK loves to hawk,” BBC,29 May 2002 (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 9. “Air Force of Zimbabwe loses more aircraft as sanctions bite,” African Aerospace,5 May 2015, (Accessed 8 February 2017).
• 10. “Zimbabwe: Purchase of Jets From China Wise,” All Africa.com,1 July 2005 (Accessed 8 February 2002).

More than three quarters of a million people could be trapped in western Mosul as the latest military offensive approaches in northern Iraq.

According to aid groups conditions in the city have been deteriorating since November when forces fighting the Daesh group cut off supply lines to the west when capturing the east of the city.

Andres Gonzalez, Oxfam’s country director in Iraq, said: “This next phase of fighting carries the highest stakes yet for civilians. The idea that families could be trapped amid heavy fighting – particularly in the narrow streets of the Old City – without any safe means of escape is a terrifying prospect.”

“Oxfam is calling on all armed forces to avoid the use of heavy weapons in populated and built up areas, including mortars and artillery, and to provide genuinely safe escape routes to avoid the high number of civilian casualties seen so far,” Gonzalez added.

Aid organisations are in a state of high alert in expectation of renewed attempts to force Daesh out of Mosul altogether. It is hoped that the Iraqi-led military effort will uphold the pledge of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, to do everything possible to ensure the safety of civilians.

Despite Abadi’s commitment, approximately 2,000 civilians were killed or injured in the first three months of the offensive to recapture Mosul. Over 190,000 people fled their homes, although around 30,000 have now returned.

Civilian accounts suggest that non-combatants have been targeted by Daesh during battles to retake the east of the city, and civilian families have also been killed by US airstrikes.

Now, with routes out of Mosul severely limited – bridges and roads having been destroyed – there is a very high risk that imminent fighting will incur further civilian casualties.

Oxfam and other aid organisations are readying aid supplies to help respond to a possible further influx of up to 250,000 people when the next phase of the military offensive begins.

Blankets, heaters, hygiene kits and other vital supplies have been distributed to villages south of Mosul where more people are likely to flee.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, said last month that 47 percent of all casualties sustained in the military operation since 17 October have been civilians.

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that over 1,675 wounded civilians were sent to Erbil’s main hospitals to receive trauma care and at least 312 civilians were treated at a surgical hospital in Bartallah between 17 October 2016 and 25 January 2017.

Reports on the numbers of civilians treated in hospitals and trauma centres do not reflect the total number of civilians killed and injured.

Doctors have told The New Arab that some residents of western Mosul have checked themselves into hospitals suffering from malnutrition.

“The West Bank also has a far greater population density,” said Gareth Browne, reporting from northern Iraq.

“Excessive coalition use of artillery or air power will likely led to significant civilian casualties. This will blunt one of the most critical weapons in the fight against IS – its senior leadership and communication networks have been decimated by US led air power.”

One Golden Division officer remarked: “We are going to burst the balloon, soon this movie will be over but it could be bloody.”

Original source

On Friday, the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, used his first trip abroad to present Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef with the CIA’s highest award for fighting terrorism, the George Tenet Medal.  Although the ceremony wasn’t covered by any of the major media, it was picked up on various blogsites where the news was greeted with predictable howls of outrage.  Not surprisingly, most American’s still see Saudi Arabia as the epicenter of global terrorism, a point which was underlined in a recent article at The Atlantic titled “Where America’s Terrorists Actually Come From”.  Here’s an excerpt:

“…after sifting through databases, media reports, court documents, and other sources, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has arrived at a striking finding: Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.

Zero…

Nowrasteh has listed foreign-born individuals who committed or were convicted of attempting to commit a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by their country of origin and the number of people they killed. … the countries at the top of the list, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are not included in Trump’s ban…

The 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 men—from Saudi Arabia (15), the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt (1), and Lebanon (1). The incident remains influential in how Americans think about the nature of terrorism.” (“Where America’s Terrorists Actually Come From“, The Atlantic)

While it’s true that 9-11 has shaped the way that Americans think about terrorism, it’s also true that most people are unaware of the deeper operational relationship between the CIA and the Saudis that dates back to the funding of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1970’s. This is where bin Laden and al Qaida first burst onto the scene, which is to say, that the sketchy CIA-Saudi connection created the seedbed for the War on Terror. Unfortunately,  even now– 16 years after the attacks of 9-11–  the relationship between the notorious intel agency and its Middle East allies remains as foggy as ever.  As a result, the Saudis are typically fingered as the main source of the problem while the CIA’s role is conveniently swept under the rug. For example, take a look at this clip from an article in the Independent:

“Saudi Arabia is the single biggest contributor to the funding of Islamic extremism and is unwilling to cut off the money supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary Clinton.

The US Secretary of State says in a secret memorandum that donors in the kingdom still “constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide” and that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority”…

Saudi Arabia is accused, along with Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, of failing to prevent some of its richest citizens financing the insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan. Fund-raisers from the Taliban regularly travel to UAE to take advantage of its weak borders and financial regulation to launder money.

However, it is Saudi Arabia that receives the harshest assessment. The country from which Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists originated, according to Mrs Clinton, “a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during the Haj and Ramadan”.

(“Saudi Arabia is ‘biggest funder of terrorists“, Independent)

Then there’s this gem from ex-Vice President Joe Biden:

“Biden said that “our biggest problem is our allies” who are engaged in a proxy Sunni-Shiite war against Syrian President Bashar Assad. He specifically named Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were (Jabhat) Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” Mr Biden said.” (“Joe Biden forced to apologize to UAE and Turkey over Syria remarks“, Telegraph)

The evidence against Saudi Arabia is overwhelming and damning, and that’s what makes Pompeo’s performance in Riyadh so confusing. Why is the head of the CIA bestowing an award on a man who could undoubtedly identify some of the world’s biggest terrorist donors, unless, of course, the CIA derives some benefit from the arrangement?

Is that it? Is there is a quid pro quo between Washington and the Saudis that no one knows about but from which Washington reaps tangible geopolitical benefits?

It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.

Is it too far-fetched to think that the Saudis are actually a franchise that acts as Langley’s primary subcontractor carrying out operations deemed too sensitive for its own agents while obscuring the Company’s role behind a cloak of plausible deniability? Isn’t that what Friday’s freakishly Orwellian awards ceremony really suggests, that the skullduggery is much darker, deeper and more complicated than anyone would care to imagine?

Washington’s support for the Mujahidin helped to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan which is why the Brzezinski crowd thought it was a success story.  If that’s the case, then isn’t it logical to assume that subsequent administrations might have used the same model elsewhere,   like Kosovo, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan?

Isn’t it at least worth investigating?

And, another thing:  Is it possible to uncover the root of terror by capturing and interrogating individual terrorists to find out what they know?

No, it’s not possible, because the individual cogs have never revealed the source of the funding-streams which originate from within the deep state. Every effort has been made to distance the authors from their illicit handiwork, to remove the tracks and erase the fingerprints. Once again, it’s all about plausible deniability and preventing the public from identifying the real perpetrators. Which means the only way to end this madness is by shedding light on the shadowy goings on between the Intel agencies and their Middle East proxies. There’s no other way.

One thing is certain, you’re not going to win the war on terror by handing out medals to the prime suspects.

A Saudi decision to license within weeks the kingdom’s first women-only gyms constitutes progress in a country in which women’s rights are severely curtailed. It also lays bare the limitations of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan for social and economic reforms that would rationalize and diversify the kingdom’s economy.

Restrictions on what activities the gyms will be allowed to offer reflects the power of an ultra-conservative religious establishment and segment of society critical of the long overdue reforms that became inevitable as a result of sharply reduced oil revenues and the need to enhance Saudi competitivity in a 21st knowledge-driven global economy.

At least two years in the making, the licensing rules announced by Princess Reema bin Bandar, vice president for women’s affairs of the General Authority of Sports, the kingdom’s sports czar, focus on Prince Mohammed’s plans laid out in a document entitled Vision 2030. The plans involve streamlining government expenditure, including public health costs in a country that boasts one of the world’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes.

“It is not my role to convince the society, but my role is limited to opening the doors for our girls to live a healthy lifestyle away from diseases that result from obesity and lack of movement,” Princess Reema said in announcing the licensing.

Princess Reema, the kingdom’s first ever women’s sports official, hopes to open gyms in every district and neighbourhood in the kingdom. The move constitutes progress in a country that has yet to introduce sports in public girl’s schools and has no public facilities for women’s sports.

Commercially run gyms catering primarily to upper and upper middle class women as well as privately organized women’s sports teams have been operating in the kingdom in a legal nether land for several years.

Princess Reema indicated that gyms would be licensed to focus on activities such as swimming, running and bodybuilding but not for sports such as soccer volleyball, basketball and tennis.

The licensing rules are in line with a policy articulated in 2014 by Mohammed al-Mishal, the secretary-general of Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Committee. At the time, Mr. Al-Mishal, responding to pressure by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said women would only be allowed to compete in disciplines that were “accepted culturally and religiously in Saudi Arabia” and conform to a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. Mr. Al-Mishal identified such sports as equestrian, fencing, shooting, and archery.

They are also in line with unrealistic hopes abandoned several years ago to emphasize individual rather than team sports in a men’s only national sports plan. The idea to de-emphasize team sports was intended to limit the potential of soccer becoming a venue of anti-government protest as it had in Egypt and elsewhere during the 2011 popular Arab revolts. It proved unrealistic given that Saudi Arabia, like most nations in the region, is soccer-crazy. Saudi Arabia announced earlier this month that it would privatize five of the kingdom’s top soccer clubs.

Women’s sports is one litmus test of Saudi Arabia’s ability to tackle its social, political and economic challenges head on and move forward with Prince Mohammed’s outline of how the government hopes to diversify the economy, streamline its bloated bureaucracy and safeguard the Al Saud’s grip on power.

Vision 2030 identifies sports “as a mainstay of a healthy and balanced lifestyle and promises “to encourage widespread and regular participation in sports and athletic activities.”

The licensing of women’s gyms is occurring even though Vision 2030 made no reference to facilities for women. The document also failed to even implicitly address demands by the IOC and human rights groups that women be allowed to compete freely in all athletic disciplines rather than only ones mentioned in the Qur’an.

The Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs, headed by Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed, reported in 2014 that up to 74 percent of adults and 40 percent of children are believed to be overweight or obese.

“Women in Saudi Arabia are being killed softly by their government. Not by public executions or brutal rapes and beatings, but by day-to-day restrictions imposed on them by their government… It must be understood that restrictions on women sports and physical activity have nothing to do with culture or religion, but rather, are fuelled by the ruling elite as a means to control the population. As long as the Saudi government continues to claim that such bans are a result of cultural and personal practices, women will continue to suffer a decline in physical and mental health, as well as their social, economic and political status,” the report asserted.

It said that the restrictions amounted to “an almost completely sedentary lifestyle forced on women by the government through a de facto ban on physical education and sports participation for women that stems from the Wahhabi imperative of ‘keeping women unseen.’”

Saudi media have reported that lack of exposure to sun had led to vitamin D deficiency among 80 percent of Saudi women.

A Human Rights Watch report concluded last year that “inside Saudi Arabia, widespread discrimination still hampers access to sports for Saudi women and girls, including in public education.”

The group noted that Saudi women were denied access to state sports infrastructure and barred from participating in national tournaments and state-organized sports leagues as well as attending men’s national team matches as spectators. Women have difficulty accessing the 150 clubs that are regulated by the General Authority, which organizes tournaments only for men.

Human Rights Watch called on the Saudi government to demonstrate its sincerity by making physical education for girls’ mandatory in all state schools; ensuring that women can train to teach physical education in schools; establishing sports federations for women and allows them to compete domestically and internationally; supporting women who want to compete in international sporting competitions on an equal footing with men; and allowing women to attend sporting events involving men’s national teams.

“Saudi authorities need to address gender discrimination in sports, not just because it is required by international human rights law, but because it could have lasting benefits for the health and well-being of the next generation of Saudi girls,” Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden said at the time.

The last time a Russian spy ship was spotted in relative proximity to the US, was in September 2015, when shortly after five Chinese naval ships were observed in the Bering Sea, U.S. military satellites identified a Russian spy ship – capable of cutting undersea communications cables and other sensors – off the coast of Kings Bay, Ga., home to the U.S. Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine fleet. Needless to say, the US navy – and Pentagon – were quite displeased: after all it is only Russia that is allowed to be surrounded by NATO forces.

Fast forward to today, when two US officials told Fox News that a Russian spy ship has been spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday morning, the first such patrol since President Trump took office. According to Fox News, the Russian spy ship was 70 miles off the coast of Delaware, heading north at 10 knots, according to one official. That location means the ship is in international waters. The U.S. territory line is 12 nautical miles. It was not immediately clear where the Russian spy ship was headed.

The ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, last sailed near the U.S. in April 2015, an official said. The ship is capable of intercepting communications or signals, as well as measuring U.S. Navy sonar capability. The Russian spy ship is also armed with surface-to-air missiles.

“It’s not a huge concern, but we are keeping our eyes on it,” one official said.

This action by the Russian military follows recent missile test launches by Iran and North Korea.

During the Cold War, Russian intelligence gathering ships routinely parked off U.S. submarine bases along the East Coast and as noted above, in 2015, another Russian spy ship was spotted near the U.S. outside the submarine base in Kings Bay, in the most recent close encounter.

Outside of U.S. intelligence gathering satellites monitoring the Russian spy ship’s voyage north, there are several airborne platforms along the East Coast that could be used by the U.S. military to monitor the Russian ship, according to one official. Currently there are four U.S. Navy warships in the Atlantic off the coast of Norfolk participating in normal training, but none have been tasked with shadowing the Russian spy ship.

There are no U.S. Navy aircraft carriers nearby.

The USS Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier, is currently off the coast of Florida doing carrier qualifications, with young pilots making their first landings. Ike does not currently have strike aircraft.

‘De Omnibus Dubitandum’ – ‘Everything is to be Doubted”

US President Donald Trump is deeply embedded in the politics of the deep state structure of American imperialism. Contrary to occasional references to non-intervention in overseas wars, Trump has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors.

While neoconservatives and liberals have raised a hue and cry about Trump’s ties to Russia, his ‘heresies’ over NATO and his overtures to peace in the Middle East, in practice, he has discarded his market humanitarian’ imperialism and engaged in the same bellicose policies of his Democratic Party presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Because he lacks the slick ‘demagogy’ of former-President Obama, and does not slather his actions with cheap appeals to ‘identity’ politics, Trump’s crude, abrasive pronouncements drive young demonstrators into the streets in mass actions. These demonstrations are not-so-discretely supported by Trump’s major opponents among the Wall Street bankers, speculators and mass media moguls. In other words, President Trump is an icon-embracer and follower, not a ‘revolutionary’ or even ‘change agent’.

We will proceed by discussing the historical trajectory, which gave birth to the Trump regime. We will identify ongoing policies and commitments determining the present and future direction of his administration.

We will conclude by identifying how current reaction can produce future transformations. We will challenge the current ‘catastrophic’ and apocalyptic delirium and offer reasons for an optimistic perspective for the future. In brief: This essay will point out how current negatives can become realistic positives.

Historical Sequences

Over the past two decades US presidents have squandered the financial and military resources of the country in multiple unending, losing wars, as well as in trillion dollar trade debts and fiscal imbalances. US leaders have run amok provoking major global financial crises, bankrupting the largest banks, destroying small mortgage holders, devastating manufacturers and creating massive unemployment followed by low-paid unstable jobs leading to collapse in living standards for the working and lower middle classes.

Imperial wars, trillion dollar bail-outs for the billionaires and unopposed flight of multinational Ccorporations abroad, have vastly deepened class inequalities and given rise to trade agreements favoring China, Germany and Mexico. Within the US, the major beneficiaries of these crises have been the bankers, high-tech billionaires, commercial importers and agro-business exporters.

Faced with systemic crises, the ruling regimes have responded by deepening and expanding US Presidential powers in the form of presidential decrees. To cover-up the decades-long series of debacles, patriotic ‘whistle-blowers’ have been jailed and police-state style surveillance has infiltrated every sector of the citizenry.

Presidents Bush, Clinton and Obama defined the trajectory of imperial wars and Wall Street plunder. State police, military and financial institutions are firmly embedded in the matrix of power. Financial centers, like Goldman Sachs, have repeatedly set the agenda and controlled the US Department of Treasury and the agencies regulating trade and banking. The ‘permanent institutions’ of the state have remained, while Presidents, regardless of party, have been shuffled in and out of the ‘Oval Office’.

The ‘First Black’ President Barack Obama pledged peace and pursued seven wars. His successor, Donald Trump was elected on promises of ‘non-intervention’ and promptly picked up Obama’s ‘bombing baton’: tiny Yemen was attacked by US forces, Russia’s allies in the Donbas Region of Ukraine were savaged by Washington’s allies in Kiev and Trump’s ‘more realist’ representative, Nikki Haley, put on a bellicose performance at the UN in the style of ‘Madame Humanitarian Intervention’ Samantha Power, braying invectives at Russia.

Where is the change? Trump followed Obama by increasing sanctions against Russia, while threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation in the wake of Obama’s major military build-up in the Korean peninsula. Obama launched a surrogate war against Syria and Trump escalated the air war over Raqqa. Obama encircled China with military bases, warships and warplanes and Trump goose-stepped right in with warmongering rhetoric. Obama expelled a record two million Mexican workers over eight years; Trump followed by promising to deport even more.

In other words, President Trump has dutifully picked up the march along his predecessors’ trajectory, bombing the same targeted countries while plagiarizing their maniacal speeches at the United Nations.

Obama increased the annual tribute (aid) to Tel Aviv to a whooping $3.8 billions while bleating a few pro-forma criticisms of expanding Israeli land-grabs in Palestine; Trump proposed to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem while blubbering a few of his own mini-criticisms of illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land.

What is overwhelmingly striking is the similarity of Obama and Trump,’s policies and strategies in foreign policy, their means and allies. What is different is their style and rhetoric. Both ‘Change Agent’ Presidents immediately break the same phony pre-election promises and function well within the boundaries of the permanent state institutions.

Whatever differences they have are a result of contrasting historic contexts. Obama took over the collapse of the financial system and sought to regulate banks in order to stabilize operations. Trump took over after Obama’s trillion-dollar ’stabilization’ and sought to eliminate regulations – in the footsteps of President Clinton! So ‘much ado’ about Trump’s ‘historic deregulation’!

The ‘winter of discontent’ in the form of mass protests against Trump’s ban against immigrants and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries follows directly from Obama’s ’seven deadly wars’. The immigrants and refugees are direct products of Obama’s invasions and attacks on these countries leading to murder, injury, forced displacement and misery for million of ‘predominantly’ (but not exclusively) Muslims. Obama’s wars have created tens of thousands of ‘rebels’, insurgents and terrorists. The refugees, fleeing for their lives, have been largely excluded from the US under Obama and most have sought safe havens in the squalid camps and chaos of the EU.

As terrible and illegal as Trump’s border closure to Muslims and as promising as the mass public protests seem, they are all the result of the near decade long policy of murder and mayhem under President Obama.

Following the policy trajectory – Obama shed the blood and Trump, in his vulgar racist style is left to ‘clean up the mess’. While Obama has been made into a ‘Nobel Peace Prize’ peace maker, grumpy Trump is soundly attacked for picking up the bloody mop!

Trump has chosen to tread the path of obloquy and faces the wrath of purgatory. Meanwhile, Obama is off playing golf, wind surfing and flashing his ‘devil may care’ smile to his adoring scribblers in the mass media.

As Trump stomps down the path laid out by Obama, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators fill the streets to protest the ‘fascist’, with scores of major mass media networks, dozens of plutocrats and ‘intellectuals’ of all genders, races and creeds writhing in moral outrage! One is left confused at the deafening silence of these same activists and forces when Obama’s aggressive wars and attacks led to the deaths and displacement of millions of civilians, mostly Muslim, and mostly women – as their homes, weddings, markets, schools and funerals were bombed.

So much for American muddle-headedness! One should try to understand the possibilities that arise from a massive sector finally breaking their silence as Obama’s glib warmongering has been transformed into Trump’s crude march to doomsday.

Optimistic Perspectives

There are many who despair but there are more who have become aware. We will identify the optimistic perspectives and realistic hopes rooted in current reality and trends. Realism means discussing contradictory, polarizing developments and therefore we accept no ‘inevitable’ outcomes. This means that outcomes are ‘contested terrain’ where subjective factors play a leading role. The interface of conflicting forces can result in an upward or downward spiral – toward more equality, sovereignty and liberation or greaterconcentration of wealth, power and privilege.

The most retrograde concentration of power and wealth is found in the oligarchic German-dominated European Union – a configuration which is under siege by popular forces. The United Kingdom voters chose to exit from the EU (Brexit). As a result, Britain faces a break-up with Scotland and Wales and an even greater separation from Ireland. Brexit will lead to a new polarization as London-based bankers depart to the EU and free market leaders confront workers, protectionists and the growing mass of the poor. Brexit fortifies nationalist-populists and leftist forces in France, Poland, Hungary and Serbia and shatters the neo-liberal hegemony in Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and elsewhere. The challenge to the EU oligarchs is that popular insurgency will intensify social polarization and can bring to the fore progressive class movements or authoritarian nationalist parties and movements.

Trumps ascent to power and his executive decrees have led to highly polarize electorates, increased politicization and direct action. The awakening of America deepens internal fissures between small ‘d’ democrats, progressive women, trade unionists, students and others against the big ‘D’ Democratic Party opportunists, speculators, life-long Democratic warmongers, bourgeois black ‘D’ Party hacks (the mis-leaders) and a small army of corporate-funded NGO’s.

Trumps embrace of the Obama-Clinton military and Wall Street agenda will lead to a financial bubble, bloated military spending and more costly wars. These will divide the regime from its trade union and working class supporters now that Trump’s cabinet is composed entirely of billionaires, ideologues, rabid zionists and militarists (as opposed to his promise to appoint ‘hard-nosed’ deal-making businessmen and realists). This could create a rich opportunity for movements to arise which reject the truly ugly face of Trump’s reactionary regime.

Trump’s animosity to NAFTA, and advocacy of protectionism and financial and resource exploitation will undermine the corrupt, murderous, narco-neoliberal regimes which have ruled Mexico for the past 30 years since the days of Salinas. Trump’s anti-immigration policy will lead to Mexicans choosing to ‘fight over flight’ in confronting the social chaos created by the narco-gangs and gangster police. It will force the development of Mexico’s domestic markets and industry. Mass domestic consumption and ownership will embrace national-popular movements. The drug cartel and their political sponsors will lose the US markets and face domestic opposition.

Trump’s protectionism will limit the illegal flow of capital from Mexico, which amounted to $48.3 billion in 2016 or 55% of Mexico’s debt. Mexico’s transition from dependency and neo-colonialism will deeply polarize the state and society; the outcome will be determined by class forces.

Trump’s economic and military threats against Iran will strengthen nationalist, populist and collectivist forces over the neo-liberal ‘reformist’ and pro-Western politicians. Iran’s anti-imperialist alliance with Yemen, Syria and Lebanon will solidify against the US-led quartet of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Britain and the US.

Trump’s support for Israel’s massive seizure of Palestinian land and its ‘Jews-only’ ban against Muslims and Christians will lead to the ’shaking off’ of the multi-millionaire Palestinian Authority quislings and the rise of many more uprisings and intifadas.

The defeat of ISIS will strengthen independent governmental forces in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, weaken US imperial leverage and open the door to popular democratic secular struggles.

China’s President Xi Jinping’s large-scale, long-term anti-corruption campaign has led to the arrest and removal of over a quarter-million officials and businesspeople, including billionaires and top Party leaders. The arrests, prosecution and jailing has reduced the abuse of privilege, but more important, it has improves the prospects for a movement to challenge vast social inequalities. What began from ‘above’ can provoke movements from ‘below’. The resurrection of a movement toward socialist values can have a major impact on US vassal states in Asia.

Russia’s support for democratic rights in Eastern Ukraine and the re-incorporation of Crimea via referendum can limit US puppet regimes on Russia’s southern flank and reduce US intervention. Russia can develop peaceful ties with independent European states with the break-up of the EU and the Trump electoral victory over the Obama-Clinton regime’s threat of nuclear war.

The world-wide movement against imperialist globalism isolates the US-backed right-wing power grab in South America. Brazil, Argentina and Chile’s pursuit of neo-liberal trade pacts are on the defensive. Their economies, especially in Argentina and Brazil, have seen a three-fold increase in unemployment, four-fold rise in foreign debt, stagnant to negative growth and now face mass-supported general strikes. Neo-liberal ‘toadyism’ is provoking class struggle. This can overturn the post-Obama order in Latin America.

Conclusion

Across the world and within the most important countries, the ultra-neoliberal order of the past quarter century is disintegrating. There is a massive upsurge of movements from above and below, from democratic leftists to nationalists, from independent populists to the right-wing reactionary ‘old guard’: A new polarized, fragmented political universe has emerged. The beginning of the end of the current imperial-globalist order is creating opportunities for a new dynamic democratic collectivist order. The oligarchs and ’security’ elites will not easily give way to popular demands or step down. Knives will be sharpened, executive decrees will issue forth, and electoral coups will be staged to attempt to seize power. The emerging popular democratic movements need to overcome identity fragmentation and establish unified, egalitarian leaders who can act decisively and independently away from the existing political leaders who make dramatic, but phony, progressive gestures while seeking a return to the stench and squalor of the recent past.

Researchers have unlocked the mystery of why people have seen so many different images in Rorschach inkblots.

The image associations — a bat, woman with a ponytail, many different animals, people, a jack-o-lantern and more — are induced by fractal characteristics at the edges of the blots and depend on the scaling parameters of the patterns, according to a nine-member team led by University of Oregon physicist Richard P. Taylor in a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Fractals are objects with irregular curves or shapes and are recognizable building blocks of nature. Trees, clouds, rivers, galaxies, lungs and neurons are fractals.

The new discovery isn’t about improving inkblots for psychological assessments — their use became controversial and mostly set aside in the last 20 years. It does, however, have implications for Taylor’s efforts to design a fractal based retinal implant and for potentially improving materials used for camouflage.

“These optical illusions seen in inkblots and sometimes in art are important for understanding the human visual system,” said Taylor, who is director of the UO Materials Science Institute. “You learn important things from when our eyes get fooled. Fractal patterns in the inkblots are confusing the visual system. Why do you detect a bat or a butterfly when they were never there?”

Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist, published 10 inkblot patterns on separate cards, five done in black and white and five in color, in 1921. To make them, he poured different amounts and kinds of ink onto cards, folded them and pressed them tightly before opening them to display symmetrical patterns of varying complexities.

Rorschach died in 1922 and never knew about the subsequent widespread use of the inkblots to help assess a person’s personality and mental health. Up to 300 differently perceived images have been recorded for each of the 10 inkblots. Whether such perceptions speak to mental health, reflect a person’s level of creativity or simply draw from a person’s past experiences has been debatable.

It is the complexity of the inkblots that Taylor’s team, which included collaborators from five institutions, has dissected.

The group analyzed the boundaries of the inkblots. The work involved scanning them and then extracting the boundaries between regions of ink absorption and unstained portions of the cards using an edge-detection computer analysis. That analysis quantified the visual complexity of the blot boundaries using a parameter called fractal dimension D.

Combining these pattern analysis results with original psychology studies conducted on the blots in the 1930s and 1950s, the researchers uncorked “a very clear trend” between the dimensional values of the cards and their ability to induce images, Taylor said.

“As you increase the D value, which makes for more visual complexity, the number of visual perceptions fall off,” he said. “People see a lot more patterns in the simple ones.” Inkblots with D values of 1.1 generate the highest numbers of perceived images, the team found.

The team then put their findings to a human test, generating computerized fractal patterns with varying D values. When seen for 10 seconds by psychology undergraduate psychology students at the University of New South Wales in Australia, the same trend between D values and imagery surfaced.

Fractal patterns are also found in the artwork of Jackson Pollock, whose abstract expressionist paintings captured Taylor’s lifelong interest in childhood. Pollock’s paintings from 1943 to 1952, Taylor has found, are composed of fractals with D values that increased from 1.1 to 1.7. That change was deliberate, Taylor said, as Pollock sought ways to reduce imagery figures seen in his earlier work.

The study is among many that Taylor and his colleagues have pursued to better understand the connection between vision and nature. In 2015, Taylor and the UO along with Simon Brown and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand obtained a U.S. patent for using artificial fractal-based implants to restore sight to the blind. The patent covers all fractal designed electronic implants that link signaling activity with nerves for any purpose in animal and human biology.

In January 2016, Taylor received a $900,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to pursue his work on fractal-based implants.

“All of our studies are highlighting an effect called fractal fluency,” Taylor said. “The eye has evolved to efficiently process the fractal patterns found in nature’s scenery. This reduces the observer’s stress by up to 60 percent. If you don’t build fractal fluency into a bionic eye, not only have you lost the ability to navigate, you’ve also lost that symbiotic relationship with nature’s fractal patterns.”

Albert Einstein considered the origin of the Earth’s magnetic field one of the five most important unsolved problems in physics. The weakening of the geomagnetic field, which extends from the planet’s core into outer space and was first recorded 180 years ago, has raised concern by some for the welfare of the biosphere.

But a new study published in PNAS from Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and University of California San Diego researchers finds there is no reason for alarm: The Earth’s geomagnetic field has been undulating for thousands of years. Data obtained from the analysis of well-dated Judean jar handles provide information on changes in the strength of the geomagnetic field between the 8th and 2nd centuries BCE, indicating a fluctuating field that peaked during the 8th century BCE.

“The field strength of the 8th century BCE corroborates previous observations of our group, first published in 2009, of an unusually strong field in the early Iron Age. We call it the ‘Iron Age Spike,’ and it is the strongest field recorded in the last 100,000 years,” said Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of TAU’s Institute of Archaeology, the study’s lead investigator. “This new finding puts the recent decline in the field’s strength into context. Apparently, this is not a unique phenomenon — the field has often weakened and recovered over the last millennia.”

Additional researchers included Prof. Oded Lipschits and Michael Millman of TAU, Dr. Ron Shaar of Hebrew University, and Prof. Lisa Tauxe of UC San Diego.

Delving into the inner structure of the planet

“We can gain a clearer picture of the planet and its inner structure by better understanding proxies like the magnetic field, which reaches more than 1,800 miles deep into the liquid part of the Earth’s outer core,” Dr. Ben-Yosef observed.

The new research is based on a set of 67 ancient, heat-impacted Judean ceramic storage jar handles, which bear royal stamp impressions from the 8th to 2nd century BCE, providing accurate age estimates.

“The period spanned by the jars allowed us to procure data on the Earth’s magnetic field during that time — the Iron Age through the Hellenistic Period in Judea,” said Dr. Ben-Yosef. “The typology of the stamp impressions, which correspond to changes in the political entities ruling this area, provides excellent age estimates for the firing of these artifacts.”

To accurately measure the geomagnetic intensity, the researchers conducted experiments at the Paleomagnetic Laboratory of Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California San Diego, using laboratory-built paleomagnetic ovens and a superconducting magnetometer.

“Ceramics, baked clay, burned mud bricks, copper slag — almost anything that was heated and then cooled can become a recorder of the components of the magnetic field at the time of the event,” said Dr. Ben-Yosef. “Ceramics have tiny minerals — magnetic ‘recorders’ — that save information about the magnetic field of the time the clay was in the kiln. The behavior of the magnetic field in the past can be studied by examining archaeological artifacts or geological material that were heated then cooled, such as lava.”

Advanced dating method

Observed changes in the geomagnetic field can, in turn, be used as an advanced dating method complementary to the radiocarbon dating, according to Dr. Ben-Yosef. “The improved Levantine archaeomagnetic record can be used to date pottery and other heat-impacted archaeological materials whose date is unknown.

“Both archaeologists and Earth scientists benefit from this. The new data can improve geophysical models — core-mantle interactions, cosmogenic processes and more — as well as provide an excellent, accurate dating reference for archaeological artefacts,” said Dr. Ben-Yosef.

The researchers are currently working on enhancing the archaeomagnetic database for the Levant, one of the most archaeologically-rich regions on the planet, to better understand the geomagnetic field and establish a robust dating reference.

By Elise Harris

The head of the Vatican office charged with interpreting Church law has said that divorced-and-remarried persons who want to change their situation but cannot, may be admitted to Communion without living in continence.

“The Church could admit to Penance and to the Eucharist faithful who find themselves in an illegitimate union when two essential conditions occur: they want to change the situation, but they are unable to fulfill their desire,” Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, 78, wrote in his booklet Chapter Eight of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhoration Amoris laetitia, published last week.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. His booklet, published by the Vatican Publishing House and presented Feb. 14 at a Vatican press confence, offers his own interpretation of Amoris laetitia. He said it is aimed at “grasping the rich doctrinal and pastoral message” of Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation.

Part of the reason for writing it, he said, is because the exhortation’s eighth chapter has “been judged with either negativity or with a certain reservation.”

In the text, Cardinal Coccopalmerio extensively quotes Amoris laetitia, saying Chapter 8 illustrates both the clear doctrine of the Church on marriage, as well as the conditions in which, due to “serious” repercussions, couples living in irregular unions might be able to receive Communion.

He reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, and stressed that the Church must in no way “renounce to proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its greatness.”

“Any form of relativism, or an excessive respect in the moment of proposing it, would be a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also a lack of love of the Church,” he said.

However, he noted that, as said in Amoris laetitia, there are many complex factors contributing to why marriages fail and irregular unions are so common, such as abandonment by a spouse, cultural stigmas, or other “mitigating factors.”

The cardinal pointed to paragraph 301 of Amoris laetitia, which reads: “it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.”

By referring to “any irregular situation,” the exhortation, in his opinion, “intends to refer to all those who are married only civilly or only living in a de facto union or are bound by a previous canonical marriage,” the cardinal said.

Further quoting that paragraph, the cardinal said, “a subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values,’ or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin … factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision.”

Offering an example of a situation in which a person might be fully aware of the irregularity of their situation yet faces great difficulty in changing it for fear of falling into greater sin, Cardinal Coccopalmerio pointed to couples in a new union who can’t separate due to “serious reasons” such as the education of their children.

He also used the example of a woman cohabiting with a man and his three children, after they had been abandoned by his first wife.

In the book, the cardinal said the woman had saved the man “from a state of deep despair, probably from the temptation of suicide.” The couple had been together for 10 years, adding another child to the mix, with the woman making considerable sacrifices to help raise the other three.

While the woman in the hypothetical situation “is fully aware of being in an irregular situation” and would “honestly like to change her life, but evidently, she can’t,” the cardinal said, explaining that if she left, “the man would turn back to the previous situation and the children would be left without a mother.”

To leave, then, would mean the woman would fail to carry out her duties toward innocent people, namely, the children. Because of this, Cardinal Coccopalmerio said, “it’s then evident that she couldn’t leave without new sin” occurring.

Speaking on the point of continence, the cardinal pointed to St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio.

In the document, St. John Paul II taught that the divorced-and-remarried who for serious reasons cannot satisfy the obligation to separate may receive absolution which would open the way to Communion only if they take on the duty to live in complete continence – to live as brother and sister.

However, for Cardinal Coccopalmerio, while the couples who are able to do this should, for others the temptation of infidelity increases the longer a couple refrains from sexual intimacy, potentially causing greater harm to the children.

He referred to footnote 329 of Amoris laetitia. The footnote is a reference to the quoting of St. John Paul II’s words in Familiaris consortio acknowledging that some of the divorced-and-remarried cannot, for serious reasons, separate. The footnote applies the words of Gaudium et spes that “where the intimacy of married life is broken off, its faithfulness can sometimes be imperiled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined” – in its context, speaking about married couples – to “the divorced who have entered a new union.”

Cardinal Coccopalmerio stressed that while for him the desire to change one’s situation despite the inability to do so is enough to receive Communion, the conditions must be “carefully and authoritatively discerned” on the part of ecclesial authority, which would typically be the couple’s parish priest, who knows the couple “more directly” and can therefore offer adequate guidance.

For the cardinal, the only instance in which a couple in an irregular situation could be barred from Communion is when, “knowing they are in grave sin and being able to change, they have no sincere desire” to do so.

He also suggested that a diocesan office charged with advising on difficult marital situations could be “necessary, or at least useful.”

Cardinal Coccopalmerio was absent from his book presentation, and it was presented instead by Orazio La Rocca; Fr. Maurizio Gronchi; Fr. Giuseppe Costa, SDB; and Alfonso Cuateruccio.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is the latest prelate to speak out on the question of Amoris laetitia and admission to Communion for the divorced-and-remarried. The exhortation has been met with a varied reception and intepretation within the Church.

Several bishops, including the bishops’ conferences of Germany and of Malta, have said the divorced-and-remarried may receive Communion.

Yet many have maintained the Church’s traditional discipline, including recently Bishop Vitus Huonder of Chur and Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Ordinariate of St. Peter.

And Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has on multiple occasions maintained that Amoris laetitia is in continuity with Church teaching.

In an interview with Il Timone earlier this month, he said that Amoris laetitia “must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church.” He said that St. John Paul II’s teaching in Familiaris consortio “is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments.”

Confusion on this point, he said, stems from a failure to accept St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor.

Cardinal Müller suggested that in order to quell the confusion generated by the differing interpretations of Amoris laetitia, everyone ought to study the Church’s doctrine, beginning with Scripture, “which is very clear on marriage.”

“All of us must understand and accept the doctrine of Christ and of his Church, and at the same time be ready to help others to understand it and put it into practice even in difficult situations,” he stated.

Observing the difference between the statements of Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Coccopalmerio, Dr. Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, wrote that “the Church’s arguably two highest-ranking cardinals in the areas of canonical interpretation and the protection of doctrine and morals are in public, plain, and diametric opposition with each other concerning a crucial canonico-sacramental practice. This division cannot stand.”

A Pakistani court imposed a nationwide ban on celebrating and promoting Valentine’s Day at official level and in public places, state-run APP news agency reported.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court also directed the government to ensure that no such celebrations would be held in public places on Feb. 14.

“Nothing about the celebration of Valentine’s Day and its promotion must be spread on electronic and print media. No event shall be held at official level and in any public place,” the court directed.

The bench directed that “all TV channels stop the promotion of Valentine Day, forthwith.”

The court was responding to a petition filed by a Muslim called Abdul Waheed who said St. Valentine’s Day celebrations promoted immorality, nudity and indecency, which were against Muslim traditions and values.

(RFE/RL) — The White House has said that President Donald Trump fully expects Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine.

Spokesman Sean Spicer made the remarks at a contentious February 14 news conference that focused largely on the abrupt departure of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Flynn resigned less than 24 hours earlier, following news reports that said phone calls he held with Russia’s ambassador prior to Trump’s inauguration included discussions of sanctions imposed by then-President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration hit Russia with several waves of sanctions following Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he wants better relations with Russia and that he would consider lifting sanctions against Moscow.

Multiple news reports in the past week have said Flynn specifically mentioned the issue of sanctions in phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak weeks before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Spicer defended Trump’s approach to Russia, telling reporters on February 14 that the president “has made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to de-escalate the violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea.”

“The irony of this entire situation is that the president has been incredibly tough on Russia. He continues to raise the issue of Crimea, which the previous administration allowed to be seized by Russia,” Spicer said.

Spicer also pointed to remarks made by Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in her first appearance before the Security Council on February 3, in which she forcefully condemned Russia, saying that “Crimea is a part of Ukraine.”

Haley said in her remarks that “Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine.”

It was not clear whether Haley was also referring to sanctions imposed on Russia for its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

One of the phone calls that Flynn had with Kislyak reportedly occurred on December 26. That was the same day that Obama announced a new set of sanctions against Russia in retaliation for what U.S. intelligence concluded was a systematic effort using computer hacking and propaganda to influence the presidential election.

Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the election.

By Jean-Christophe Catalon

The ‘No’ vote in the Swiss referendum on tax reform was a big defeat for the government. Pressure from trading partners and big businesses will force Bern to come up with a new proposal, and fast.

Swiss voters on Sunday (12 February) massively rejected the government’s proposed third corporate tax reform (RIE III). Of the 26 cantons, just one, Vaud, voted in favour of the reform.

The reform, defended tooth and nail by the federal and canton governments, would have altered the tax system to compensate for the end of Switzerland’s special taxation arrangements with multinational companies. But now they will be forced to find another way to comply with the new requirements of the international community on taxation.

Swiss voters clearly rejected plans to overhaul the corporate tax system yesterday (12 February), sending the government back to the drawing board as it tries to abolish ultra-low tax rates for thousands of multinational companies without triggering a mass exodus.

The Brussels blacklist

Until now, companies based in Switzerland have benefitted from a so-called special tax status. This is a regulatory mechanism allowing holdings, companies and subsidiaries to pay tax at rates lower than the national corporate rate.

But the OECD decided in 2014 to establish global standards on corporate tax, putting an end to such practices, a decision that could put a significant dent in Switzerland’s economy.

European tax authorities currently lose around €1 trillion to these special tax regimes each year.

Switzerland has until 2019 to end its special tax status and conform to the new standards. If it fails to do so, Bern may find itself on the European Union’s tax havens blacklist, which is still being drawn up.

Tax deductions

This puts Switzerland in a difficult situation. On the one hand, its trading partners say it will be blacklisted if it does not end its tax advantages for multinational companies. And on the other hand, multinational companies say they will leave if it does.

In an attempt to find a third way, the right-wing dominated Federal Council proposed a tax reform based on four main principles:

• Prioritising research and development spending and creating a “patent box”, or a reduced tax rate on revenue from patents developed in Switzerland.
• Establishing a “step up”, or re-evaluating dormant assets.
• A tax break for profits generated at canton level. In compensation, the confederation would commit to increasing the tax proceeds it allocates to the cantons.
• A notional interest deduction (NID): “To keep financial activities and holdings in Switzerland, the bill proposes to level the playing field for companies financed by their own equity or by foreign capital, by allowing them to deduct notional (or fictitious) interest from the share of equity that exceeds their base capital,” according to the newspaper Le Temps.

Why did the Swiss vote ‘No’?

The last two points – and particularly the NID – are the most controversial. “It is one of the most costly measures in the RIE III,” Le Temps reported. Opposition from the left and the city mayors crystallised around this point. Some even called it “a con”, benefitting shareholders to the detriment of taxpayers.

With the Swiss economy suffering from a crisis of purchasing power, tax-paying voters, worried about rising tax bills, were particularly susceptible to this argument. Using figures from the finance ministry, the Federal Council warned that up to 24,000 companies could move abroad, costing the country 150,000 jobs. But this argument clearly failed to resonate with voters more concerned about their purchasing power.

A new reform for 2021?

The result of the vote does not change Switzerland’s international commitments, nor does it modify Swiss legislation. Voices on both the left and the right have called for a new bill to be proposed as soon as possible. According to RTS, the Federal Council could present its next proposal by the end of this year. But Finance Minister Ueli Maurer doubts any such reform will be in place before 2021.

Can the European Union wait that long? Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici would not say for sure.

“The rejection of the reform demands that we redouble our efforts on taxation. The Commission plans to consult the member states to decide together what path to take if these commitments are no longer respected,” the Commissioner wrote in the Tribune de Genève.

Naval shipbuilding in Southeast Asia, although ambitious in scope, is likely to remain limited to low-tech manufacturing (hulls and sub-assemblies), MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul), and a few showcase projects.

By Richard A. Bitzinger*

Nearly every large country in Southeast Asia possesses a shipbuilding industry. Some local shipbuilding sectors are quite large, in fact – Vietnam, for example, is the world’s fifth largest shipbuilder. These countries are engaged, in a limited way, in the construction of warships for their respective navies.

Moreover, most countries wish to expand their shipyards and production capacities, and into more ambitious shipbuilding programmes. However, Southeast Asian shipyards face some long-range problems when it comes to further developing their shipbuilding capabilities.

Southeast Asian Shipbuilding: An Overview

Naval production in Southeast Asia is mostly concentrated in the following shipbuilding companies:

• Indonesia: PT PAL, a state-owned “strategic” industrial enterprise;
• Malaysia: Boustead Naval Shipyard, a division of Boustead Heavy Industries;
• Singapore: ST Marine, a division of Singapore Technologies Engineering (STEngg);
• Thailand: Bangkok Dock Company Ltd.; and
• Vietnam: Vinashin, also known as the Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (SBIC) of Vietnam.

The best-known products of these local shipyards include:

• Indonesia: PT PAL has constructed German-designed 57-metre patrol boats for the Indonesia Navy (TNI-AL), as well as a large Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ships, and wants to build two Dutch-designed Sigma-class corvettes, if the TNI-AL places a follow-on order. PT PAL also wants to build submarines (designed by South Korea) for the navy.
• Malaysia: During the 2000s, Boustead Naval Shipyard undertook construction of six Kedah-class Next Generation Patrol Vessel (based on the German MEKO A-100 design) for the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN). This programme has been succeeded by the Second-Generation Patrol Vessel (SGPV) programme, which will entail Boustead building six French-designed Gowind-class (3100-ton) frigates.

The company is partnering with DCNS, a French naval contractor, on this project, which will cost at least US$2.8 billion. The SGPV programme is regarded as especially crucial by the RMN, who are concerned that they would lack credible combat capability in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

• Singapore: Recent and current naval shipbuilding programmes include the Formidable-class frigate (based on the French Lafayette design), the Endurance-class amphibious assault ship (also sold to the Thai navy), and the 1200-tonne Independence-class littoral mission vessel. Singapore also plans to build a large Joint Multimission Ship (JMMS), basically a helicopter carrier (LHD).
• Thailand: Bangkok Dock undertook final assembly of the Krabi-class OPV, based on the British River-class patrol vessel.
• Vietnam: Vietnam is currently building several Russian-designed Molniya-class corvettes; other naval products include patrol boats and logistics ships.

Challenges Facing Local Naval Shipbuilders

Southeast Asian shipyards face long-term problems when it comes to expanding or further developing their shipbuilding capabilities or product lines, three challenges in particular stand out:

• Lack of profitability: Many regional shipyards are unprofitable due to extremely small production runs or mismanagement. Indonesia’s PT PAL is starved for contracts, as the Jakarta government is unable to commit to a long-term naval modernisation (and funding) plan.

In 2009, PT PAL was forced to enter a process of rationalisation through which around half of its 2,000 employees were made redundant. For its part, Vietnam’s shipbuilding ambitions were dealt a severe blow in 2010, when Vinashin collapsed under a debt burden of US$4.5 billion (it is currently under reorganization).

• Corruption: In Malaysia corruption in armaments procurement has undermined national naval shipbuilding efforts. The Kedah-class shipbuilding programme was initially an ambitious plan to build 27 large OPVs; however, it was plagued from the beginning by fiscal irregularities, resulting in quality control problems and delays.

The original contractor, PSC-Naval Dockyards, was discovered to have not paid several subcontractors, while also engaging in the apparent embezzlement of employee retirement funds; as a result, the government forced Boustead to take over PSC shipyards and finish the project. Even then, first ship in the series failed to pass its pre-delivery sea trials due to technical problems and quality issues. Eventually, the Kedah-class programme was reduced to just six ships.

• Low levels of shipbuilding expertise and technology: The relatively low level of technological and technical capabilities of regional shipyards is probably the greatest impediment that these builders face. In most cases, local shipbuilding is decidedly small-scale, limited to relatively simple items like patrol vessels, corvettes, and offshore patrol vessels (OPVs). Only in a few instances (Singapore, for instance), do local shipbuilders construct larger vessels, such as frigates or amphibious assault ships.

Even then, all regional shipbuilding enterprises have to import all or nearly all of the systems and weapons that go on these warships, including the engines, radars, electronics, fire control, missiles, and naval guns. Singapore’s Formidable-class frigates, for example, use French sensors and decoys, Israeli electronic warfare systems, American-made antiship cruise missiles and helicopters, and an Italian 76mm gun.

For the most part, when it comes to naval shipbuilding, Southeast Asian shipyards essentially just build the shell (i.e., the hull, superstructure, and interiors), while the high-end, value-added items are supplied by foreign subcontractors.
Stuck at the Bottom of the Market?

For these reasons, many regional shipyards want to move up the “ladder of production” by undertaking more complex and more complicated ship-construction projects. Malaysia, for example, was keen to co-produce (with the United Kingdom) two Improved Lekiu-class frigates being acquired by its navy. For its part, Indonesia has expressed an interest in locally building follow-on Sigma-class corvettes (the first two were built in the Netherlands), as well as submarines.

In most cases, however, there is a chicken-and-the-egg problem at work here: local shipyards do not possess sufficient workforce skills or manufacturing capabilities to take on more complicated projects, while at the same time they do not engage in sufficient large-scale production to justify developing those capabilities. When it came to the Lekiu programme, for example, BAE Systems, the British-based lead contractor, was reluctant to include Boustead in any kind of significant industrial cooperation, arguing that it was “not advanced enough” to play a large role in the programme. Moreover, many of these shipyards still lack sufficient numbers of qualified engineers and technical personnel to engage in more advanced types of naval production.

Consequently, not withstanding the potential, it is unlikely that Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, or Vietnam will ever rise above their current positions as relatively minor players in naval shipbuilding. Naval construction will continue to be ad hoc and sporadic, limited to MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul), low-end manufacturing (hulls and sub-assemblies), final production, and a few showcase arms projects that are, for the most part, generally low-tech in nature.

*Richard A. Bitzinger is Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Military Transformation Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is formerly with the RAND Corp. and the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies.

Interested in making an investment that promises a 100 percent return on your money, and then some? Buy a low-cost, open-source 3-D printer, plug it in and print household items.

In a recent study published in Technologies, Michigan Technological University Associate Professor Joshua Pearce set out to determine how practical and cost effective at-home 3-D printing is for the average consumer.

He found that consumers–even those who are technologically illiterate–can not only make their money back within six months, but can also earn an almost 1,000 percent return on their investment over a five-year period. Pearce estimates that using only the random 26 objects analyzed in the study may have already saved consumers who use 3-D printers at home more than $4 million. There are several million free 3-D printable designs available on the web.

Out of the Box

To compile the data, Pearce asked Emily Petersen, an undergraduate student majoring in materials science and engineering, to use a 3-D printer fresh out of the box with no prior experience, instruction or guidance.

“I’d never been up close and personal with a 3-D printer before,” Petersen said. “And the few printers I had seen were industrial ones. I thought learning to operate the printer was going to take me forever, but I was relieved when it turned out to be so easy.”

Petersen used a Lulzbot Mini – a low-cost model that can print in high resolution, works with a variety of operating systems and supports open-source hardware and software (meaning that all source codes associated with the printer and its programs are freely available and can be modified).

After commissioning the Lulzbot–a process that took roughly half an hour–Petersen used a 3-D design file search engine called Yeggi to find and build 26 popular, everyday items.

“You search, select, and hit print,” Pearce said, “just like a regular computer and office paper printer.”

Petersen’s favorite creation? A fan-art Pokemon Bulbasaur planter that she filled with a small cactus and gave to her mom for Christmas.

Printing Money

After Petersen finished printing, she worked with Pearce on the economic analysis. By printing 26 items, the researchers simulated household 3-D printer use over a six-month period, with the conservative assumption that a typical household might print one “homemade” item per week.

Petersen printed items that were reasonably popular, such as tool holders, snowboard binder clips and shower heads. She and Pearce monitored each item’s energy, print time and plastic use to determine its costs, then conducted a savings analysis on a per-item basis.

For each item printed, from mounts for GoPro cameras to Dremel tools, Pearce and Petersen ran high-cost and low-cost comparisons. For example, for a printed cell phone case, the total cost of printing was compared with the purchase cost of both a high-end phone case and the least expensive model available.

The low-cost comparisons showed an average 93 percent savings, while the high-cost comparisons showed an average savings of 98.65 percent.

“With the low-cost estimates, the printer pays for itself in three years and all the costs associated with printing–such as the price of plastic and electricity–are not only earned back, but provide a 25 percent return on investment. After five years, it’s more than 100 percent,” Pearce said. “With the high-cost estimates, the printer pays for itself within six months. And after five years, you’ve not only recouped all the costs associated with printing, you’ve saved more than $12,000.”

Pearce said a five-year life cycle for the printer is reasonable, mainly because the Lulzbot Mini is open source–all the files to upgrade and fix the machine are available for free online. Many of the parts most likely to break are even 3-D printable. Pearce also emphasizes that Petersen used the printer’s default settings and didn’t print any complicated items, such as scientific equipment.

“I’m an engineering student,” Petersen said, “but I was new to this type of hands-on troubleshooting. The fact that I was able to troubleshoot any issues I had and produce 26 items relatively easily is a testament to how accessible this technology is to the average American consumer.”

Petersen hopes her experience will help others have more confidence in at-home 3-D printing. As the technology develops and more printable designs become freely available online, Pearce and Petersen agreed that it will only get easier.

Ice loss from Canada’s Arctic glaciers has transformed them into a major contributor to sea level change, new research by University of California, Irvine glaciologists has found.

From 2005 to 2015, surface melt off ice caps and glaciers of the Queen Elizabeth Islands grew by an astonishing 900 percent, from an average of three gigatons to 30 gigatons per year, according to results published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

“In the past decade, as air temperatures have warmed, surface melt has increased dramatically,” said lead author Romain Millan, an Earth system science doctoral student.

The team found that in the past decade, overall ice mass declined markedly, turning the region into a major contributor to sea level change. Canada holds 25 percent of all Arctic ice, second only to Greenland.

The study provides the first long-term analysis of ice flow to the ocean, from 1991 to 2015.

The Canadian ice cap has glaciers on the move into the Arctic Ocean, Baffin Bay and Nares Strait. The researchers used satellite data and a regional climate model to tally the “balance” of total gain and loss each year, and the reasons why. Because of the huge number of glaciers terminating in area marine basins, they expected that discharge into the sea caused by tide water hitting approaching glacier fronts would be the primary cause.

In fact, they determined that until 2005, the ice loss was caused about equally by two factors: calving icebergs from glacier fronts into the ocean accounted for 52 percent, and melting on glacier surfaces exposed to air contributed 48 percent. But since then, as atmospheric temperatures have steadily climbed, surface melt now accounts for 90 percent.

Millan said that in recent years ice discharge was only a major component in a few basins, and that even rapid, short term increases from these ice fields only had a minor impact on the long-term trend.

Millan added, “We identified meltwater runoff as the major contributor to these ice fields’ mass loss in recent years. With the ongoing, sustained and rapid warming of the high Arctic, the mass loss of the Queen Elizabeth Islands area is likely to continue to increase significantly in coming decades.”

The American public deserves to know the answers to at least the first five of these questions, and will then make a judgment on the sixth:

1. Why didn’t Trump act sooner to fire Flynn? He knew about Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador at least since January, when then-acting attorney general Sally Yates notified the White House that Flynn had “put himself in a compromising position” with his phone call to the Russian ambassador.

2. What, if anything, did Trump authorize Michael Flynn to tell the Russians before the inauguration?

3. What other contacts did Flynn and other Trump aides have with Russia before the election? U.S. intelligence reports show that Flynn was in touch with Russian ambassador Kislyak during the 2016 campaign, and that communications between the two continued after Nov. 8. The Russian ambassador has even confirmed having contacts with Flynn before and after the election, though he declined to say what was discussed.

4. Did Flynn or other Trump aides know of or cooperate with Russia in interfering in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf?

5. If so, did Trump know about or encourage such cooperation?

These questions won’t go away. The FBI and the Senate Intelligence Community are investigating. Hopefully, investigative reporters are also on the case. Eventually, the truth will come out. As Richard Nixon learned, coverups in Washington just make things worse.

Which leads inevitably to the last question:

6. If Trump knew or encouraged, will he be impeached?

Our feud with Macy’s may be coming to an end.

Members recall that last year we led a campaign against the mega-department store chain for its firing of a Catholic Hispanic senior store detective, Javier Chavez, merely because he disagreed with the store’s policy of allowing cross-dressing men to use the ladies room.

Chavez was made aware of Macy’s policy after a transgender person complained when told to leave the ladies room. Even though he agreed to enforce the policy, he was punished by the Macy’s thought police for expressing his personal reservations, grounded in his Catholic faith.

How much will be made public regarding this issue has to do with how this is handled by the New York State Division of Human Rights. If the ruling is made part of the public record, we will make an announcement.

No matter what the official outcome is, Macy’s has proven to be a brazen bully. We hope our role in making this episode public helps to generate a fair conclusion for Chavez.

“Rather than advancing a political solution that almost everyone agrees is the only way to solve the conflict, it seems the Trump administration’s actions are just adding fuel to the fire.” — Adam Baron, European Council on Foreign Relations, Feb 7, 2016

The seething bickering in Washington has been going on for over a week. Was the first authorised international raid by the Trump administration, supposedly made over dinner, a success?  There was little denying that the  bells and blood Yemen mission in Bayda province last month was spectacularly deadly, costing the life of a US serviceman, twenty five civilians including nine children and eight women – in addition to al-Qaeda operatives.

The leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Qassim al-Rimi, did not suffer the same fate, but was happy to chortle that President Donald Trump was the “White House’s new fool.”  The foolishness was compounded by revelations that a US citizen, an eight-year old girl and daughter of Anwar al-Awlaqi, was also killed.

The cleric Al-Awlaqi was slain in 2011 by a drone strike on the grounds that he was a key recruiter for al-Qaeda, making him the first US citizen to be killed by his own government without trial since the Civil War.

Even a Yemeni tribal leader was baffled at the sheer muscularity of the raid, featuring Reaper drones, helicopter gunships and elite personnel, suggesting that it would have been easier to simply bomb the place – “but it looks like Trump is trying to say ‘I’m a man of action’.”  It was evident that the president had been addled by a diet of “Steven Seagal movies.”[1]

Networks were drawing up their scorecards on the mission.  NPR came up with its own list, among them the death of US Navy Seal, Ryan Owens, the civilians already mentioned, and a $90 million tilt-rotor aircraft known as an Osprey, destroyed on crash landing.  “The operation, the first authorized by the Trump presidency, also raises serious questions about the planning and decision-making of the current occupant in the Oval-Office, as well as the truthfulness of information coming out of the White House” (NPR, Feb 10).

The technique of such truthfulness – the alt-fact world of tinkering, adjustments and readjustments – was as much a matter of deflection than anything else. White House press secretary Sean Spicer is fast becoming the spinner of the deflected tale and inflated ruse: instead of focusing on the mission’s heroic efforts, critics, he charged, were rubbishing the exploits of a fallen Navy Seal.

“The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to his country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information that we received during that raid.  I think any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions that he just took.  Full stop.”[2]

Impoverished Yemen has already become a pool of blood, a civil war in large part exacerbated by the continued US support for the Saudi Arabian-led operation against the Shia Houthi rebels.  That particular bombing campaign has been vicious, making a point of targeting critical infrastructure (schools, roads, hospitals) along with a generous spread of holy sites.

Some 10,000 people have perished (the number is derived from an August 2016 estimate by the United Nations); millions have been displaced, joining the humanitarian queues in a global supply of refugees.  Famine risks stalking the land, afflicting up to 19 million Yemenis who are said by officials to require humanitarian assistance.

Senator John McCain certainly saw few good signs in the operation, deeming it a failure.  The International Crisis Group saw a gun-crazed buffoon stumbling into conflict.  “The first military actions by the Trump administration in Yemen bode poorly for the prospect of smartly and effectively countering AQAP.”  Even Yemen’s government-in-exile emitted mixed signals regarding the Yakla engagement, wishing to conduct a “reassessment” of the raid.

This reassessment was already taking place moments with the blood still drying.  The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) painted a less than rosy picture despite celebrating the killing of al-Qaeda militants.  “A team designated by the operational task force commander has concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely to have been killed in the midst of a firefight during a raid in Yemen on January 29.  Casualties may include children.”[3]

According to the Wall Street Journal, initial reports that Yemeni officials had withdrawn their support for such operations was subsequently repudiated.[4]  What was needed in the future, rather, was “more coordination with Yemeni authorities before any operation and there needs to be consideration for our sovereignty.”

The ingredients for a deepening of conflict exist.  Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, insists that the Houthis are an Iranian proxy front, and a terrorist one, no less.  The Houthis, whilst denying the full bloom link with Teheran, take issue with the US support for the Saudi operations to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Add to this a range of Islamist groups of various persuasions, including the Islah Party, with deep Muslim Brotherhood links, and we have a convulsed mess that will need more than an action hero to sort out.  The White House resident, imbued with the brutish spirit of Steven Seagal, will be the perfect recruitment figure for the very organisations Washington wishes to neutralise.

Notes:
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-trump-idUSKBN15M1HP

[2] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/spicer-anyone-who-says-yemen-raid-failed-should-apologize.html

[3] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/admits-civilians-killed-yemen-raid-170202042531151.html

[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/yemen-seeks-tighter-coordination-after-u-s-raid-1486581504

By Matthew Crandall*

(FPRI) — The Baltic states appear to be underestimating President Donald Trump, just as others have before. Baltic elites should use caution when dealing with Trump’s America. The elite in America underestimated Trump’s ability to win and underestimate his ability to implement his radical agenda. At every stage (primary election, general election, and now the presidency), Trump has done and is doing exactly what he promised, much to the surprise of political pundits. His actions and statements have resulted in chaos, which Trump hopes to use to get a better “deal” for America. Trump’s interest-based foreign policy will not be kind to the Baltic states, so Baltic leaders should look to deepen cooperation with other key allies, such as Germany, and work even harder to strengthen multilateral institutions.

A recent Foreign Policy article describes the Trump doctrine as “tactical transactionalism.” Trump’s foreign policy thinking is problematic for small states and is especially problematic for small states that have tied their security policy to the United States. At first glance, it might not seem threatening. U.S.-Baltic relations have always had a flavor of transactionalism. Baltic states eagerly sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to demonstrate solidarity with the U.S. In the name of solidarity, they did what many allies were not willing to do. Lithuania hosted a CIA “black site” prison, and Estonia accepted a Guantanamo Bay detainee. In return, the Baltic states expected and received the full benefits of being allies with the United States. NATO’s forward presence is the most tangible example, but Obama’s visit to Tallinn in 2014 demonstrated the political and psychological benefits as well.

While there were some aspects of transactionalism in Baltic-U.S. relations pre-Trump, the term did not fully explain the relationship. First, the United States was not really interested in the contributions of the Baltic states, but rather the political symbolism of that contribution. In other words, the United States cared more about maintaining the U.S.-led liberal world order and the global institutions that represent it such as NATO and the European Union (EU). Baltic participation played a role in increasing the legitimacy of that order. The symbolic nature of their contribution is why the Baltic states could get so much bang for their buck: for the small price of deploying a few hundred troops, they had the full political and military support of the United States. President Trump will likely not care much about the importance of the symbolism of Baltic participation.

President Trump is not interested in maintaining global institutions that bind the United States through rules and multilateral interdependence. He has been very vocal against multilateral trade deals and has expressed skepticism about NATO on several occasions, most recently in a phone conversation with France’s President Hollande. Trump is interested in material benefits for the U.S.: in Trump’s world, he is interested in what others can do for him and for America. In a zero-sum world, such thinking has left him to focus almost exclusively on bilateral relations with large states such as China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

This worldview is problematic for the Baltic states for three reasons. First, their contribution to American endeavors and international institutions will be worth much less to the United States, even when that contribution is directly in the interest of the United States. Second, as Trump’s support for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU demonstrates, he is not interested in maintaining the world order that the Baltic states depend on. Last, Donald Trump will lead an interest-based foreign policy that will create distance between the values that the Baltic states support and what the United States now represents.

Those analyzing the impact of Trump’s America for the Baltic states often will look, rather shortsightedly, at Trump’s position towards Russia or his position towards NATO. While these are important topics, the philosophical problems that Trump’s America poses for the Baltic states are more significant and more troublesome than thus far admitted.

Baltic policymakers should go back to the drawing board to create a new grand strategy because solidarity with the United States can no longer be the prime directive of Baltic foreign policymaking. Instead, Baltic leaders should focus on maintaining multilateral, rule-based institutions, first and foremost the EU and NATO. The Baltic states have typically been keen on supporting these institutions already. All three Baltic states adopted the Euro and have been active participants in NATO missions. Despite their supportive policies, NATO and the EU are often seen in terms of what they can do for the Baltic states. NATO is the protector from Russian aggression, and the EU provides billions to the budget. When NATO or the EU engages in activities that are in opposition to Baltic interests such as the refugee relocation policy, the Baltic states should ask not what NATO and the EU can do for them, but what they can do for the EU or NATO.

Specifically, they will have to place the good of the institution above bilateral relations with the United States. In 2003, Europe was split over the Iraq war. The Baltic states sided with the United States. In the future, if a conflict is too controversial to gain the support of NATO or the UN, then it should not gain the support of the Baltic states. Given the existential importance of the United States to NATO and the questions that Donald Trump brings, it would be wise to elevate the importance of the EU over NATO. In the past, Baltic leaders have supported deeper European military integration as long as it did not duplicate NATO; they should remove that caveat and support EU integration further even if there is some duplication.

The Baltic states have also been strong supporters of the Eastern partnership countries and EU and NATO enlargement. Given the fragile state of both NATO and the EU, Baltic states should shift the priority from future enlargement to commitments of current integration. Estonia’s upcoming presidency of the EU will be a good platform to accomplish these goals.

Baltic leaders would be wise to pinpoint allies that are willing to stand and fight for a rules-based world order that would benefit small states and represent the democratic values that the Baltic states have come to cherish. Germany is now the most influential country that strongly supports the current order, and these three countries should seek even more avenues to deepen relations with Germany. Placing multilateral institutions and bilateral relations with Germany at a higher priority than the United States does not mean abandoning or giving up on America. Many European leaders feared that President Obama would also abandon them with his pivot to Asia. Obama eventually found that the easiest way to get things done was with European allies. Baltic leaders should pursue engagement with the Trump administration, but they also need to be realistic about the limits of that policy.

It may be that Trump will find the price of a transactional foreign policy too steep and will instead value solidarity with his allies. Others may hope to simply wait out Trump’s presidency and expect the liberal world order to reassert itself. Unfortunately, they are underestimating the ease at which world orders can be undone and the difficulty in which they can be formed. Baltic leaders should be cautious. Without proper preparation and action, they are most likely to pay the price of Trump’s transactional foreign policy.

About the author:
*Matthew Crandall is an associate professor of International Relations at Tallinn University

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

New research by scholars at the University of Pittsburgh shows that American patients have significantly better access to new cancer medicines than their peers in other developed countries:

Of 45 anticancer drug indications approved in the United States between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2013, 64% (29) were approved by the European Medicines Agency; 76% (34) were approved in Canada; and 71% (32) were approved in Australia between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2014. The U.S. Medicare program covered all 45 drug indications; the United Kingdom covered 72% (21) of those approved in Europe— only 47% (21) of the drug indications covered by Medicare. Canada and France covered 33% (15) and 42% (19) of the drug indications covered by Medicare, respectively, and Australia was the most restrictive country, covering only 31% (14).

(Y. Zhang, et al., “Comparing the Approval and Coverage Decisions of New Oncology Drugs in the United States and Other Selected Countries,” Journal of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy, 2017 Feb;23(2):247-254.

I am no fan of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but it is a less-restrictive bureaucracy than its counterparts in other developed countries. Allowing patients to use new medicines without the interference of a government bureaucracy should be pretty straightforward, as long as they are aware of the risks.

Coverage, on the other hand, is more ambiguous. Both Medicare and other countries’ single-payers systems are socialized. So, we should not always jump to the conclusion that every approved drug should be covered 100 percent. As long as patients are free to pay out-of-pocket, we might not want taxpayers to pay the entire cost of each drug. However, cancer is the textbook diagnosis of a catastrophically expensive diagnosis, when we expect insurance to kick in. If insurance does not cover a wide portfolio of therapeutic options, it is not good coverage.

When we look at approval and coverage combined, the results are appalling. Of 45 drugs covered by Medicare, the British National Health System was the best of the other countries measured, and it covered only 21—less than half. We are not talking about North Korea, here. Nevertheless, it is shocking how much citizens of otherwise free countries give up when they allow their governments to control their access to health care.

This article was published at The Beacon